The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs

13

The Bar

Going to the Crombie house, on Beverly Drive, Masuto’s car was almost sideswiped by a tourist bus. It was the second time in a single day that he had narrowly avoided an accident. It was unlike him. He had allowed himself to become submerged completely in a game of chess with an invisible antagonist-and to become absorbed in this manner was dangerous, dangerous for himself and dangerous for the women he was committed to protect.

He was crowding too much into a single day, and he was being drawn too thin, yet he could not stop. He found himself quietly cursing the tourist bus, and the fact that he could be thus irritated disturbed him. Yet, he reflected, it was ridiculous to allow these huge tourist buses to prowl the streets of Beverly Hills, adding their noxious blasts to the prevailing pollution. People from all over the country and all over the world came here to look at streets not too different from streets in any other wealthy community, content to pay then-money to have the homes of movie stars pointed out to them. Masuto knew it was a swindle. Three quarters of the places pointed to as the tourists rode by in their big buses had been vacated by the stars years ago, sold and resold since then, but still giving the tour guides a reason to sell their tickets-and of course Beverly Drive, the broad main street of the town with its magnificent mansions, was the focus of all the tour buses.

Driving more carefully, he pulled into the Crombie driveway, parking behind Beckman’s Ford. Beckman let him into the house.

“Quiet, very quiet, Masao,” Beckman said. “The ladies are driving me crazy. I don’t know if I can hold them tonight. And to make it worse, someone at the station gave my wife this number. She called here three times. Now I stopped answering the phone. I let the ladies do that.”

They were standing alone in the entrance foyer, and Masuto said to Beckman, speaking softly, “Tell me about Mitzie.”

“What’s to tell? I’m forty-three years old, Masao. If I was fifteen years younger, I’d leave my wife and marry Mitzie. Except why the hell should she look twice at a cop who makes fifteen thousand a year? I’d have to put away three years of wages to buy that Porsche of hers.”

“You’ve spent twenty-four hours with those women, and that’s all you’ve got?”

“What do you want?”

“Who is she?”

“You mean where does she come from? I’m not totally a jerk, Masao. She comes from Dallas, Texas. Her mother was a laundress. Her father was a no-good bum and a drunk. Mitzie cut out of there first chance she got and came here like all the other kids do to become a movie star. She worked around as a waitress and for a while she worked in a hair-dressing place.”

“Wait a minute-not Tony Cooper’s place?”

“That’s right. She gets a big bang out of the fact that she can go there now and lay down thirty bucks for the same service she used to dish out.”

“It’s a small world. Did you ever ask her why she and Billy Fuller split up?”

“There’s a general consensus among all three dames that he’s a son of a bitch.”

“Okay, Sy. Now I want to talk to Mrs. Crombie. I’ll wait here. Where are they?”

“Watching TV.”

“Get her.”

Laura Crombie came into the foyer with Beckman and said, “I’m sure you’ve solved everything, Sergeant, and we can stop living this nightmare.”

“Not quite.”

“Of course it can’t go on, you know that. We can’t continue to live here shut up and away from the world like this.”

“I know that.”

“When?”

“Soon, I hope,” Masuto told her. “I have just a few questions that might help. For one thing, did your ex-husband own a pistol?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what kind?”

“I’m afraid not. To me, one pistol is the same as another.”

“Did you ever see it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you do know what an automatic pistol looks like and how it differs from a revolver. Was his an automatic pistol or a revolver?”

“I think it was an automatic pistol. I’m hot sure.”

“And by any chance did he belong to the same pistol club that Alan Greene belonged to?”

“Yes, I think he did.”

“Thank you,” Masuto said. “I’ll only ask you to endure this through the rest of this evening. One way or another, it will come to an end.”

“I hope you’re right,” Beckman said as Masuto was leaving.

“We’re trying.”

Masuto got into his car, but instead of driving off, he sat there brooding. He was a meticulus man; that came with his Japanese ancestry and with his Zen training. His Zen training had taught him how elusive the truth is and it had also enabled him to use his insight to capture flashes of the truth. The meticulous quality went along with his distrust of his flashes of insight.

He released the hood of the car, got out, raised the hood, and stared at the motor. He had never wired a car with dynamite, yet faced with the necessity he felt he could pull it off. Six sticks of dynamite in a confined spot behind the engine, a detonator stuck in place with so simple a device as a couple of Band-Aids, and then a lead from the ignition.

He closed the hood of his car and sat down behind the wheel. Again he brooded for a while. Then he called the station on his radiophone. “Put me through to the captain,” he told Polly.

“For a dashing, handsome Zen Buddhist Oriental, you are the most unromantic person I know.”

“The captain, Polly.”

“What’s up?” Wainwright asked.

“I’m troubled and I’m nervous.”

“Maybe you ought to knock it off. Go home. Give it tomorrow.”

“That’s no good. If I let this go until tomorrow, something will happen tonight. I feel it in my bones.”

“You got the three dames boxed up with Beckman. If you want me to go over there and lecture them, I will. I’ll talk them into staying put another night.”

“That won’t do it. He’s too aggressive, too bold. He’s running for his life now.”

“Well, damn it, Masao, what do you want me to do?”

“I want to pick him up.”

“Are you crazy?” Wainwright exploded. “Maybe you got another career lined up, but I got twenty years in this police force. What are you going to charge him with? Picking his nose in public? You got nothing on him, nothing but that crazy intuition of yours. I believe you because I know you and I seen this happen before, but you got nothing. Bring me something. Bring me the gun, and we’ll pick him up in a minute.”

“It wouldn’t help. He’s using Billy Fuller’s gun.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that Fuller’s gun was stolen.”

“Did he report it?”

“He only discovered the theft today.”

“And what makes you so sure our man stole it?”

“I’m not. Just another guess. You can be sure the gun will turn up, and then when the bullets are matched, it leads straight to Fuller.”

“And it’s also a beautiful alibi for Fuller.”

“Yes, it works both ways. You won’t pick him up then?”

“Masao, we can’t. All we’ll have is one beautiful lawsuit, and if he hits the city for a million bucks, we can pack up and go.”

“All right.”

“Where are you off to now?”

“Maybe to find the missing piece.”

Masuto started his car and pulled out of the driveway. It was only about a mile to Tony Cooper’s hairdressing establishment on Camden Drive. It was past six o’clock, and the streets of the business section were empty. Masuto wondered whether he had delayed too long.

He parked his car in front of the beauty shop, and through the glass window, it appeared to be a repeat of the night before. Cooper stood over a single customer, combing and shaping a head of black hair. He glanced at Masuto as the detective entered, raising an eyebrow. Masuto nodded, took a seat at the side of the room, and then sat silently and thoughtfully, watching Cooper. Cooper, he decided, was quick, skilled, and meticulous. He recognized the quality. Whatever Cooper did, he decided, he would do well. Why then had he come to hairdressing? Why does any man come to what he gives his life to? Why had Masao Masuto become a policeman?

Questions were easier than answers. The woman whose hair was being cut had fingernails as long as a Mandarin’s; they were painted bright red. They were claws on the ends of her long fingers, and above the hands, the wrists were encased in jeweled bracelets.

Cooper finsished. The woman signed the pad he held out to her. Masuto wondered what the monthly bill of a woman who used Tony Cooper’s hair-dressing shop amounted to.

Cooper took her to the door, and then closed and locked the door behind her. “Do you wait until you see me with my last customer?” he asked Masuto.

“Just a coincidence.”

He dropped into the chair next to Masuto and stretched out his legs. “Have you caught your killer yet?”

“I’m close.”

“But not close enough.”

“That’s right. Not close enough. It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You solve the puzzle, and then when you’ve finished, you discover that two or three pieces are missing.”

“I noticed you were looking at that woman’s fingernails,” Cooper said.

“You notice things. That’s a rare gift.”

“To a great many men, those long, painted red fingernails are pretty disgusting. I’ve had men tell me it’s a complete turnoff. Yet the women do it. I guess they feel it’s a sex symbol.”

“Or a class symbol. You don’t mop floors or play a piano with those fingernails,” Masuto said. “You know, the missing pieces can be the most important.”

“Missing pieces?”

“There’s no time left,” Masuto said. “There’s no time to play games. Anyway, I don’t like to play games. Not when someone’s life is at stake.”

“Don’t you tend to dramatize, Sergeant?”

“Now look,” Masuto said, “don’t be deceived by the fact that I don’t act the role of a TV cop. I’m not joking and I’m not playing games. I told you yesterday that I didn’t give a damn whether you were a homosexual or not. I don’t. But if you keep on lying to me, I’ll make you wish you were never born. I’ll slap more violations on you than you can carry. I’ll hound you right out of this town, and don’t think I’m making empty threats. So if you want me to walk out of here and forget that we ever met, just answer my questions and answer them truthfully.”

“You got one hell of a nerve! You can’t come in here-”

“I can and I am! Now why didn’t you tell me that Mitzie Fuller worked here?”

“You didn’t ask me.” He took a deep breath. “Anyway, she was only here a week and she only worked mornings.”

“Did the other women know her then?”

“No. That was before they became my customers.”

“Why did she leave?”

Cooper hesitated, and Masuto said, “I want it all. All-and quickly.”

“Because I wanted to marry her.”

“You’re gay.”

“And what you don’t know about gay, Mr. Detective, would fill a book. Sure I’m gay. That doesn’t mean I can’t fall in love with a woman. That doesn’t mean I can’t stop being gay.”

“But she didn’t marry you?”

“She would have. She just said that she saw too much of that kind of marriage end up as tragedy. She didn’t want to do it to me or to herself.”

“So she married Billy Fuller.”

“Yes.”

“They were married six months. What broke up that marriage after six months?”

“Why don’t you ask Mitzie? Why don’t you ask Fuller?”

“You know damn well that I asked them and that I got nowhere.”

“Maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe there are some things that even cops don’t have the right to know.”

“Granted. I’m not curious, Cooper, and I’m not peddling gossip. I could guess the answer to the question I asked you, but it’s no damn use for me to guess. I have to know.”

Cooper sat with his legs stretched out, staring at his clasped hands. The moments ticked by. Finally he said, “You really think this creep intends to kill those dames?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Mitzie?”

“Yes, Mitzie.”

“Okay. Here it is. Mitzie was a hooker, a hundred-dollar-a-night hooker. Billy Fuller married her without knowing that. Can you imagine what it did to a man with Fuller’s phony macho when he found out? I’m amazed he didn’t try to kill her right then and there. Oh, he slapped her around all right. She showed me bruises the size of purple plums. But mostly he cried. Mitzie said if the little bastard weren’t so impossibly nasty, she would have felt sorry for him. That after he used her for a punching bag.”

“How did he find out?”

“You always got a good friend who’ll tell you what you don’t have to know.”

“But when she was married to him, she had stopped?”

“Hooking? Yes, of course.”

“I’m not up on all the folkways. Now exactly when did she begin to work as a prostitute?”

“Is that important?”

“Yes, very.”

“Mitzie is twenty-nine. She came to Los Angeles about eight years ago, dreaming the old impossible dream. And it is impossible, believe me. She worked around as a waitress, and that’s when I got to know her, maybe six years ago when she was waiting a joint around the corner. I talked her into a job here, because I wanted her around and because I thought she was the prettiest kid I ever saw. Well, she was already turning a trick every now and then, and after she left here, she didn’t go back to slinging hash.”

“She became a full-time prostitute.”

“If you want to call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t call it. To me, it’s no worse than being a cop.”

“We won’t discuss that. You said she was a hundred-dollar-a-night girl. You don’t walk the streets and pick up hundred-dollar customers. Did she have a pimp?”

“No!” Cooper snapped. “She hated their guts.”

“Then how did she work?”

“Do you know a place called The Bar?”

“Just that, The Bar?”

“That’s right. It’s in Hollywood, up on a hill to the left as you drive into Laurel Canyon. A driveway up to a parking lot, and then from the parking lot up a staircase. It’s got a lot of color and a wonderful view of the city lights. It’s a bar and restaurant, and the food isn’t bad, and it’s the kind of place people go when they don’t want to be seen. There’s always two or three girls working out of the place, and the guy who runs it, George Denton, is pretty decent to the girls. It brings him trade. There’s no cheap pickup. I suppose you could call George a pimp, because if a guy wanted something, George hustled it, but he never took more than ten percent from the girls. Mitzie worked out of that place until she met Fuller. I guess she met him two years ago. He gave her a couple of small parts, but she was no great shakes as an actress.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Masuto rose and held out his hand. “Thanks, Cooper.”

Cooper took his hand. “Forgive me for not getting up. I’m washed out. I work my ass off in this place, and I don’t know for what.”

Masuto let himself out, closing the door behind him.

A strange world, Masuto thought, wherein he earned his daily bread, a world of sunshine and palm trees and million-dollar mansions where a girl with the face of an angel was a hooker and a Zen Buddhist was a cop and a grocery store in Beverly Hills sold tomatoes for a dollar and seventy cents a pound and a boutique sold dresses that weighed less than a pound for three thousand dollars. But, he wondered as he got into his car, was any world less strange? On a planet gone mad and apparently intent upon destroying itself, was Beverly Hills abnormal?

He maintained his sanity and his equanimity by refraining from judgments. He did his work, and although it was past quitting time, he still had work to do.

He drove north to Santa Monica Boulevard and then to Sunset Boulevard, through the Strip into Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Somewhere in back of his mind was a recollection of a place called The Bar. It went back through the years, but the more he plucked at it, the more it eluded him.

There on his left was the modest sign and the arrow. THE BAR. He turned onto the driveway and drove up to the parking lot, a high angle drive about a hundred yards long. Half a dozen cars were already there. Against the wall of the hill, a wooden staircase went up another forty feet or so.

Masuto climbed the staircase. From the landing at the top, the view was magnificent, the whole of the Los Angeles bowl spread out in front of him, glittering in the night like some vast jewel. He was never unconscious of the beauty of Los Angeles. The beauty resisted the most fervent march of tackiness and bad taste that the development, which is euphemistically called civilization, had ever produced. The beauty fought back, even, as Masuto thought in his more optimistic moments, as truth and decency fought back.

He looked at the view for a moment or two more, and then he went inside. Like most Los Angeles restaurants, the place was underlit. Lamps on the tables, a few lights at the entrance, but for the most part a muted interior. There was a bar, a screen, and a dozen tables. At the far end, a spinet piano at which a black man improvised the blues.

A tall, good-looking man of about fifty, dark-haired, with a long, narrow face that had become habitually fixed in an expressionless mask, wearing working evening clothes, approached Masuto. He studied the detective, examining his battered tweed jacket, his wrinkled gray flannel trousers, and his tieless shirt.

“Can I help you?” The noncommittal question which left a variety of outs.

Masuto showed his badge.

“Would you come into the light?”

Obligingly, Masuto put the wallet which contained his badge under the reservation light. “Detective Sergeant Masuto,” he said. “Beverly Hills police.”

“Aren’t you out of your territory, Sergeant?”

“Mr.-”

“George Denton.”

“I see. This is your place?”

“That’s right.”

“Now I’m sure,” Masuto said, “that you know enough about the way the law functions in Los Angeles County to know that I can go anywhere in the county in pursuit.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Denton asked sardonically. “Hot pursuit? Isn’t that what the law says?”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Well, look around you. I know every customer in the place. No criminals. So unless you got a warrant, I’d rather not have the fuzz around. It gives my place a bad name.”

“Your place has a bad name.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just this,” Masuto said quietly. “You’re running a classy whorehouse. Now I don’t mind you defending your business, but don’t knock mine. I’m a mild-mannered person, but I’ve had a long day, and I’d just as soon come down on you like a ton of bricks as not. I don’t owe you one damn thing, and if you think I couldn’t smash this joint and close up your lousy business, just try me. And if you think I’m off my own turf, I’ll pick up that phone and have two black-and-whites here in five minutes, and then you can tell your story to the L.A. cops.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Hold on.”

“And you’ll address me as Sergeant Masuto.”

“Okay, Sergeant. Okay. Look, I run a quiet, decent place here. No one gets cheated and no one gets rolled. I been in business twelve years and I never had no trouble. You can’t blame me for getting a little riled when a Beverly Hills investigator comes in and starts asking questions. My God, why would you want to close me up? I’ll show you places in Beverly Hills with five times the action we ever have here.”

“I don’t want to close you up. I want some information.”

“Okay, Sure. Come over here and sit down.” He led Masuto to a small table near the bar. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you. Do you know Mitzie Fuller?”

“She was Mitzie Kogan when I knew her. That was before she married Billy Fuller. I suppose he found out that she had turned a few tricks, and that finished their marriage. She was a good kid. A real beauty. A real strawberry blonde beauty. But she hasn’t been back here since she met Fuller. She told me she wasn’t coming back. I was glad. I wished her luck.”

“That was how long ago?”

“Almost two years ago.”

“And before that, how long did Mitzie work out of this place?”

“Three years, give or take a few months.”

“How did it work?” Masuto asked. “I mean, what time did she turn up?”

“Between eight and nine most of the time. You can see, there’s not much action before then. Of course, there were nights when she’d come in at six or seven and just hang around listening to Joe over there playing the piano. She was crazy about his blues, and you don’t hear much blues these days, nothing but rock.”

“Joe was working here then?”

“That’s right. I keep my help. That ought to say something about the kind of a place I run.”

“Would Mitzie stand at the bar or sit at a table?”

“Sometimes the bar, sometimes a table, sometimes up there with Joe. It would depend. Say, what’s she into? I’d hate to see that kid get hurt.”

“So would I.” Masuto took a picture out of his pocket. “Do you know this man?”

“I know him,” Denton said, studying the picture. “His name was Smith, but that ain’t his name. Nobody’s name is Smith.”

“Do you know his real name?”

“No. I’m not curious about the customers’ names.”

“When did he first come here? Can you remember?”

“Jesus-who can remember? Maybe four years ago, maybe a little more. He gave Mitzie a short fling. Then he turned up with a girl, and after that, no more Mitzie. Mitzie left him alone. Like she never saw him.”

“He came back with the girl-or was that the last time?”

“He came back, two or three times a week. Why not? My food is as good as anything in L.A. and the prices are not out of line. I don’t bother people and I don’t ask questions.”

“Didn’t he use a credit card?”

“No, cash. Always cash. That’s all right. This is a place where men come with other men’s wives. It happens. I handle a lot of cash.”

“Always with the same girl?”

“Yeah.”

“And how long did that go on?” Masuto asked.

“Maybe nine months.”

“And what did he call the girl? And what did she call him? If they were here that many times, you must have heard names.”

“Yeah. She called him Jack and he called her Kate.”

Masuto took out of his pocket the picture of Kelly-Catherine-Addison that Beckman had lifted from the album in Laura Crombie’s bedroom. He put it in front of Denton.

“That’s the girl.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

He put the picture back in his pocket. “What was their relationship?” he asked Denton.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You watched them night after night. Were they sleeping with each other?”

Denton shrugged. “I’d say so. I don’t know what the kid saw in him, except that he was good-looking and knew his way around. These stupid kids go for older men. I didn’t like him. I felt he was a bastard. So did Mitzie. But what the hell, it was no business of mine.”

“Can I talk to Joe?” Masuto asked, nodding at the black pianist.

“Yeah.”

“How’s his memory?”

“Better than mine.”

He took Masuto over to the black pianist. “Joe, this is Sergeant Masuto of the Beverly Hills police.”

Joe nodded and went on playing. “A Nisei. They’re beginning to integrate.”

“Talk to him.”

“I’m not crazy for fuzz,” Joe said.

“I said, talk to him.”

“Okay, boss. I’ll talk.” He stopped playing. Masuto took out the two pictures. Joe nodded. “That’s right. That’s the poor kid who went off the road up on Mulholland. Her name was Catherine Addison. You remember,” he said to Denton, “I told you about that.”

Denton didn’t remember. He wasn’t covering, Masuto decided, he just hadn’t remembered. He remembered now.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” he said.

“He don’t read the papers. I do,” Joe said. “I think I told him but I’m not sure.”

“Was she here the night she died?” Masuto asked him.

The black man closed his eyes and with one finger began to pick out a mournful tune on the piano. Masuto waited. Denton turned away to deal with a customer.

“Yes,” Joe finally said.

“And the man?”

“Yes.”

“Were they happy?”

“What’s happy, Sarge? Who’s happy? No, they was not happy. The kid was crying. She came to me and asked me to play ‘Blues in the Night.’ I ain’t crazy for it, but I played it.”

“Was Mitzie here that night.”

The black man’s eyes turned cold, as if he had pulled a film over them. “I don’t know nothing about Mitzie.”

“I like Mitzie,” Masuto said. “I’m trying to save her life. Maybe what you tell me could save her life. That’s the truth.”

He thought about it for a while, his finger picking out a tune again. Then he said, “Yeah, Mitzie was here. Mitzie came over to me and asked me if I knew why the kid was crying. I remember because we never saw her again. We never saw Smith either.”

“You wouldn’t remember what time that was?”

“Jesus, man, you want a lot, don’t you? That was over three years ago. All right, I can tell you this. It was before the tables began to fill, so maybe it was before eight o’clock.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Masuto said.

“No sweat. Only don’t make it hard for George. He’s a decent man.”